Dance
by PaperCutVictim
Summary: Inspired by "Rondo of the Sun and Moon". Their story should have ended centuries ago with their bloody deaths. But death was not the end, and in their new lives, two old enemies face each other once more. "I always knew we would meet again."


Heya, PaperCutVictim here! Quick few notes before we get started.

Okay, so... I'm not gonna lie: this was written for several different reasons. First and foremost is that I have this immense writer's block going on that's driving me nuts. Second is that I love Rondo of the Sun and Moon and I really wanted to write something for it. Third is that I haven't taken a shot at a pure serious piece in a long while so I thought I'd take a stab at it.

...So in a way, you can kinda say it's desperation fueling me. XD;; I know, that sounded so horrible.

I've definitely taken some liberties here. And before someone chooses to skewer me for this, I _did_ take the names of Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu from Japanese mythology, however, I did not mean for them to be actual gods in their past lives. Basically, I just took the names and used 'em for my purposes.

Um... I think that's about it. So without further ado, let's go!

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing save for this humble piece of fanfiction.

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><p><em>At the end of the day, please meet me on the school rooftop.<em>

It was this message that had the girl climbing up the stairs leading to the rooftop. Her waist-length pink hair fluttered behind her, and her icy blue eyes stared directly ahead, her emotionless face refusing to betray any of the turmoil that brewed inside her.

No signature of any sort had accompanied the message, save for a deceptively intricate design of a sun just below that simple sentence. That would have been enough for her, but there had been one more touch. A sweet scent had emanated from the paper, and simply holding it closer to her nose to inhale it had confirmed for her the identity of the sender. Only _she_ would have done such a thing, and she had always associated this scent with _her_. Her eyes had narrowed upon recognition.

_So, you've returned too, Amaterasu._

As she had sat in her classes, listlessly staring out the window, she had lost herself in thought. Even as she climbed the stairs now, the only audible noise being the tapping of her shoes against the floor, her thoughts drifted. Amaterasu... The name brought back so many memories... memories from centuries ago that should have crumbled to dust with her bloody death. But here she was.

Reincarnated. It was the only explanation. As she had grown into her childhood, cared for by doting parents that she had never had in the past, her memories had slowly synced with her new form. The images of so much death and violence should have scarred her, so many of her memories stained crimson, but the young girl had merely accepted. No longer was she a goddess of blood and battle, the one who was simultaneously feared and revered as Tsukuyomi. She was no longer a finely tuned killing machine. She was just a simple, normal human girl.

Not Tsukuyomi, a woman whose true name had long been lost to both herself and time.

Megurine Luka.

That was her name now. She could only imagine it was similar with Amaterasu.

The door to the rooftop was before her. With only the barest hesitation, she opened it, stepping out into the sunlight. Amaterasu did not make herself difficult to find. She stood several paces from the chain link fence, seemingly lost in thought herself as she stared out across the campus. Her sailor uniform was identical to hers, and the cyan hair tied into twintails fluttered lightly with the breeze. Luka's steps did not falter as she walked toward her. She did nothing to announce her presence, and despite their history, did nothing to indicate the slightest sign of aggression. It was only when she stopped at ten paces from her that the girl turned around.

"Tsukuyomi."

"Amaterasu."

The evenly voiced greetings were exchanged coolly, both staring into each other's eyes and allowing icy blue to meet with soft teal. Neither gave away anything with their stances, but then, they never had. How many times had they stood across the battlefield from each other like this? The teal-haired girl's posture, standing straight with her hands clasped in front of her, could easily be interchanged in her mind with a teal-haired woman extending a pistol toward her head, uncaring that there was a blade pointed at her own throat. How easy it was to imagine her stained in blood, her pale skin and her hair and eyes seeming so much more vibrant because of it...

It would have been a lie to say that the sight had never entranced her. But then, they had always had some strange allure to the other. Even mortal enemies could be attracted, she supposed.

"You always were concise with your messages," Luka said quietly, holding the neatly folded letter up between her fingers and then replacing it into her skirt pocket.

"Such was a warrior's necessity."

Despite the gentle breeze that flitted through their hair and rustled their clothes, their soft voices carried easily to each other. The rosette-haired girl found herself staring at the perfectly shaped lips of the other, aware that this was being noted by her sharp teal gaze. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, not only in sound, but also in tone.

"So you indeed remember as well, Tsukuyomi."

It was not a question, so she felt no need to respond. Though she remained outwardly calm, her heart was beating faster, her blood singing in her veins. Amaterasu had always had that effect on her, ever since their first meeting on the battlefield. Even through the frantic melee, their eyes had met, instantly sensing an opponent worthy of their skills. Just the thought alone had sent excitement and anticipation coursing through her.

For any warrior of her old caliber, death was not the greatest fear. The greatest fear was to die an unworthy death, to die not because of an opponent worthy of claiming your life, but because time would force your body to betray you. Stepping forward and locking themselves into their deadly dance had only confirmed what both had already known as soon as their gazes had met: this was someone worth killing, and worth being killed by.

But to their surprise, neither fell. The battle ended inconclusively, both leaving battle out of breath for the first time, though neither had sustained much more than superficial scratches. Yet this had only fueled them further. Yes... This was someone who was reason alone for them to wake up in the mornings. This was someone who, simply by existing, validated their own existence.

Equals.

Every battle their two factions clashed, they would scour the battlefield for the other, impatiently dispatching any unworthy adversaries who dared stand in their way. They would meet, and once more, the dance would begin. For it was not a duel when they met. "Duel" simply did not do justice to the fluid grace of their movements, the hungering excitement in their eyes, the feral grins they would show each other as they lost themselves in a world where only they existed. It was a dance. A dance that each had always known the steps to, but could never find a worthy partner for until then. It was a dance whose steps only they knew, and where there could be no practice, for the slightest misstep would result in death. Neither had ever faltered. And always... always, in the back of their minds, was the wish that they could go on like that forever.

And even deeper than that was the knowledge that it could _not_ go on forever.

For even if it was a dance, it was a dance of death, and in such a contest, it was an inevitable fact that one must fall.

And inevitably, one of them had faltered.

Her most vivid memory of her past life, the one memory that had set her quaking with confused emotions, had been the memory of a mortal cut across Amaterasu's stomach, watching her gasping out her last breaths as she instinctively clutched the mortal wound even as they both knew she was doomed. She had remained with her until Amaterasu had passed away, and had stayed behind to close her eyes once her soul had left her body. She had been victorious... but the knowledge brought no elation to her heart... only a deep, aching void.

Once more, she was alone.

Then, only two days after her legendary victory over Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi was found dead beneath a tree, having run herself through on her sword.

That should have been the end of it. Yet it was not. Their presence here stood as testament to the fact.

They remained unmoving, both instinctively adopting poses of seemingly relaxed waiting, but ready to move or strike in any direction as necessary. There was an odd tension in the air; not the moments of quiet study before a duel, but... something else.

Luka was reminded of her past memories, of a strange emotion that had not yet even begun to bud by the time they had their final duel. Even up to the moment she had ended her life, she had not made sense of it. But she had sensed its power. Though respect for a worthy opponent had caused her to remain by Amaterasu's side as she breathed her final breaths and to close her eyes when she had passed away, it was another force entirely that had made her fingers touch the cold skin of her soft cheeks, had made something in her heart clench with an agony she had never dreamed possible, had made her eyes burn with tears. The final days of her life had been so painful. Though her hands were stained with the blood of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, this one death had caused her incomparable anguish.

She carefully hid any signs of distress at this memory as she continued to coolly regard the teal-haired girl. She estimated that they were the same age; about sixteen years old, though her own more well developed body perhaps made her seem slightly older. This was not to say that Amaterasu looked immature. Her body was slender and delicate, a definite hourglass figure with toned muscles that echoed the deadly woman she had once been. They were subtly different from the muscles forged from constant battle and training of the past; more like those of a dancer than anything else. It disturbed her that she was noticing these things. She had spent too long hating her, respecting her... This was... Not necessarily unpleasant.

Different.

_For what purpose could we have been allowed to be reborn?_

No answer sufficed. She tucked a few locks of her hair, the hue reminiscent of sakura petals, behind her ear. Teal eyes locked onto that simple gesture with an odd fixation. She felt disoriented by that gaze. She was far too used to the hunger for battle that she had seen in those eyes, the gleam of anticipation as they once again matched strength. The eyes she showed her now reminded her far too much of the last time they had joined their deadly dance, reminded her of the way she had gazed at her as she had bled her life away, the same haunting gaze that had stared at her in her mind's eye as she took her own life. She didn't know what to make of it at all, and it did not help as the eyes met hers, their intensity only increasing as they did.

"Is it really so strange seeing me again?" she managed to ask, her curt tone betrayal enough of her disquiet.

"Not really," Amaterasu replied evenly. "But it is strange being here with you. At the same time, I am glad... and also, not surprised."

Luka stared hard into her eyes, as though doing so would reveal the answer she wanted to find. The girl offered nothing, but allowed her to continue staring. After a pause, she spoke once more.

"I always knew we would meet again."

"Oh?" This surprised her, though she made sure to only allow a tiny portion of that to reveal itself.

Presently, Amaterasu smiled, a small but strangely warm and gentle smile. "Yes. We are drawn to each other, you and I. We always find our way to one another. Like magnets, I suppose."

"And so here we are," Luka said, trying to maintain her cool. Her words were stirring something inside of her that she did not understand, and not understanding was making her flustered... angry.

"Yes. Here we are." Amaterasu unclasped her hands to clasp them once more behind her back. She stepped toward her and Luka immediately tensed. She did not stop walking until they were but a mere pace from the other. There was no threat of violence in her. There was no threat at all, really. What was she playing at?

"You know," she began quietly. "Towards the end of our dance... there was something else going on between us."

Luka remained silent, but both knew that she agreed. It was undeniable. They should have felt nothing more than the lust for battle and blood, the hatred for an enemy, but that had not existed. The bloody rapport that existed between two who understood the way of the warrior, yes... but something even deeper than that. A sense of belonging... A powerful sense of "this is where I was meant to be." It had been easy to think of it at first as simply the elation of finding an equal, one who justified their existence, but it had become something so much more. How easy it would have been to shunt it aside, to say that it was simple madness and nothing more... but it had not been madness. Though she never understood, even up to the moment that the flame of her life had faded, just _why_ she was doing what she did, the woman who had once been called Tsukuyomi had known that she could not exist without Amaterasu. Without Amaterasu, her existence was empty.

Unnecessary.

Meaningless.

The ache had not gone away as she grew up in this human girl's form. _Something_ had always been missing, something that needed - _demanded_ - to be sated. And as much as she hated to admit it even to herself, the howling void inside her had finally begun to quiet once she knew of Amaterasu's presence.

"What of it?" Forcing words out of a throat suddenly tight with nervousness in the silence that passed between them.

The shorter girl closed the rest of the distance between them, and Luka tensed. Without asking for permission, she raised her hand up to her face, her fingers ghosting over her naturally pale skin. A shudder passed through the pink-haired girl before she could even think to stop herself.

"I... I cannot deny this... attraction to you." Amaterasu's voice, soft and melodic, became even softer with uncertainty, none of it showing in her expression save for a subtle wavering behind her teal orbs. "Even back then, I could not deny it. Perhaps... Perhaps that is why I faltered first. You were always the stronger one."

Luka froze in her position, willing herself not to do anything even as the fingertips ghosted over her skin, feeling electricity coursing through everywhere their skin made contact. She swallowed hard. "Even if I was... I could not exist without you," she admitted quietly.

Amaterasu nodded, her teal gaze not once removing itself from the ocean-blue that returned the stare. Luka began to tremble under the weight of that stare.

"We can't do this," she rasped "You're my enemy..." Even as she spoke, she didn't believe her own words.

"I _was_ your enemy," the tealette corrected. "Our masters are long dead, and their petty feud with them; honor no longer compels us to meet each other with violence." This time, when she raised her hand up to her face, she let her hand touch her cheek, cupping it in her palm. It took all of Luka's self-control to not melt into that touch. "Before you... I'm not an enemy. Not here. Here... I'm just an ordinary girl."

The words triggered something deep inside of her that she could not identify. She could imagine being with her. She did not imagine the clash of steel that once accompanied their meetings. She thought instead of a dance; not one of violence, but a different one. It occurred to her that, towards the end of their all too brief time together, they had taken a few hesitant steps of this new dance, a dance that they did not understand, and had never gotten the chance to try. Her knowledge of this dance was no better now than it was then.

But why did she feel like she wanted to find out?

"A-Amatera-"

The teal-haired girl brought a finger over her lips, silencing her with just that gentle touch. "Amaterasu will never again walk this earth. My name is Miku."

For a brief moment, eyes the color of the ocean depths stared into hers before nodding once. "Then... call me Luka."

She was surrendering herself to something she didn't fully understand, but then, she'd never truly needed to understand anything. Whether she had been Tsukuyomi or Luka, she had always trusted her instincts above all else, and her instincts were telling her that this was okay. Once more, she felt that strange sense of completeness. It wasn't something that anyone could point at and say, "There it is!" It wasn't something that could be labeled, put before the human eye and understood. But it was there, an undeniable presence that she had been missing without even knowing she had been missing it.

_What a strange feeling..._

Presently, Amater- no, Miku – turned from her to gaze out at the campus once more. She walked over to the chain link fence, her hands lightly gripping the fencing as she gazed at seemingly nothing. Luka followed, her hair flowing with the breeze and with her steps as she approached the seemingly vulnerable back. She didn't understand what exactly it was that she was doing, or what she wanted, but she could feel a sort of... need. Silently, she reached out for her, and seemingly of their own volition, her arms began to snake around the slim waist. She hesitated before fully embracing her from behind.

"Is... Is this okay?" she asked softly, her voice trembling ever so slightly.

Miku's response was to do little more than lean into her, her back pressing against Luka's front. The taller girl stiffened but slowly relaxed. Tsukuyomi had never experienced anything like this. The girl named Megurine Luka had, but only the familial kind from parents... the friendly sort that her companions gave her... This was different. Just from the way her heart beat faster, and the way the warmth from her body seemed to flow in time with her own... This was different.

"What is this feeling?" Luka whispered softly.

"I... I don't know," Miku admitted. "But I know that whatever I feel... I only feel it when it concerns you." Her hands hesitantly reached up to rest on the arms wrapped around her waist. "If it's alright with you... I would like to find out what this is."

Unbidden, warmth rushed to her cheeks, and looking down from her slight vantage point, she could see the reaction was mutual. A smile tugged at her lips.

"Un... I would like that."

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><p><em>Fin<em>

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><p>And that wraps this one up! Not really intending to go any further with this one than leave it as a one shot, though I may decide to do something in the future for Rondo of the Sun and Moon. What can I say, I freaking love that song. XD<p>

Anyways, if you've made it this far, please leave a review and lemme know what you think! 'Til next time! ^_^


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